


ways to make you see

by love_coloured



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Abandonment, Angst, Body Worship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff and Smut, Intimacy, Past Relationship(s), Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 16:25:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8453449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love_coloured/pseuds/love_coloured
Summary: Lavellan talks a little too much, and Sera can't always explain what she's feeling; old wounds are re-awakened when she finds herself feeling vulnerable. Thoughts about verbalization, sensation, trust and the ways people feel and express affection differently.





	

"Andraste's tits..." Sera gasped, catching her breath. "I didn't know you had that much in you, Lady Herald!" She attempted to roll over, found herself weakened from exertion, and simply flopped onto Lavellan's bare stomach. From this angle she could still tilt her head to gaze upon her handiwork, and was more than satisfied by the results. 

Her partner was flushed all the way from her collarbone to her ears, and completely out of breath. "You thought I was... some sort of... shrinking violet?" Lavellan laughed softly. Sera marveled that she had the energy to do so, given that she could still feel aftershocks rippling through her body. "Not sure how you got... that impression, after all the times I got off on the wrong foot. Pissed you off... made assumptions. Why else would I... still be here, after all?" Now regaining some composure, her smile was a bit wicked on the edges, but warm and sincere as always, her pale grey eyes sparkling.

Of course, being the big hat of the Inquisition required Lavellan to put on certain types of faces. Restraining her emotional reactions was part of her job, as it were. It wasn't that she didn't express emotions at all, but her utter lack of any restraint behind closed doors was unforeseen. Been holding it in too long, Sera observed, as a soft application of teeth caused her to arch her back so invitingly and demand all sorts of unspeakable things be done to her. And the sounds she made...

"Yeah, that you did. Turned it right around, though. Or else-- well, yeah, so here we are. Obviously, I mean. 'Cause, if you hadn't..." Sera rolled onto her side and was quickly gathered into an embrace. Her head, her heart, the space behind her eyes was full of a warm light. She wanted to say something else, but-- _So warm. So... bright._ It expanded to take up all available space in her thoughts and she just nestled into Lavellan's shoulder, until another thought gripped her. She squirmed; Lavellan noticed almost before she did.

"Look at me just lying here, I must seem ungrateful," she laughed. Her fingers brushed Sera's lips, guiding her until they could see eye to eye again. "You didn't think I wouldn't...?"

"I-- I wasn't--" Sera tried to smile, but she could feel something bitter rising within. And she hated it. _Really going to remember this? Right now of all times?_ "Course not, you're not like that, but. That's the way it always goes, innit? So I just thought. I was wondering, what am I thinking cuddling up to the Herald of Andraste? Just... being here?" A panoply of expressions flitted across her face, like a sudden lightning storm in summer. "That's not how... things are."

"Isn't it, though?" Lavellan's gaze was so frustratingly transparent, unwavering, that it almost pissed her off. Why wasn't she fighting it? The horrible things were just waiting to come out. And stupid Herald just lying there, all sweetness and patience as if this were worth anything, as if it were REAL. Looking at her like she's real, too. The way her eyes tickled and peeked underneath, as if she could see beyond all this to something Sera herself could just barely perceive. _She doesn't even friggin' make sense. Can't._

Sera was staring at some detail on the ceiling, half realizing what she was saying, but unable to stop. "I've ruined it again..." Lavellan seized her shoulders in her surprisingly strong grip, started to breathe something into her ear. "Stop, I don't--" She froze and tried to turn away. 

The fingers loosened and fell away, brushing her like silk. "You've ruined absolutely nothing! I don't want to impose. I'm just lonely in this tower all by myself and... ah, I'm sorry. If there's something _you_ want to talk about, I'll listen. And if you don't... That's alright, too." Her tone was patient and deadly earnest but, Sera noted with a twinge of guilt, a bit wistful. 

She didn't really _want_ to, didn't even want to feel any of this, but it was all the encouragement she needed to ease gently into her suppressed anger. "Right, and the next thing they always say, after 'it's alright'-- oh, the _first_ thing they say is more like, 'Bring your arse over here darling' or 'Nice tits for a knife-ear' which is nice and all, but not nice enough! But if she's pretty enough, yeah. I'll say yes of course, isn't no fun being cold. I could pretend. Until she woke up, and the next thing she'd say was..." She choked on the words, having seen the horror in Lavellan's eyes. " _'Get out.'_ Is what she'd say. Usually." 

_There._ Felt good to spit it out. But here, with her? It hurt to look at her face then, so forgiving of all this mess, not even backing away.

Gentle hands grasped her own, a silent response. She almost wished Lavellan would say something; she always knew the right things to say. Well, most of the time, at least... tripped up now and then on the elfy thing. But that was unavoidable, Sera had to admit. She'd moaned about the Herald's occasionally florid manner of speaking, but since 'things' had changed, she found that she loved to hear it, tasted honey in the tone of her voice and the way it poured out of her. Words came easily to Lavellan, as if she'd learned to really feel by reading a book, and the pattern was permanently etched into the path between her heart and her tongue.

The more passionate she became, the further she strung out her sentences. Being able to feel her way around a feeling instead of pushing through it, to explain the feeling in words that didn't bring ridicule, that had people eating out of her hand instead of dismissing her outright. It was infuriatingly admirable. Or admirably infuriating. Sometimes she wasn't sure which. But Lavellan had never talked down to her, nor assumed that she couldn't understand. Of course she could read and all that. But pulling the words together, actually arranging them and speaking them in a way that expressed what she was feeling? 

"It's stupid, I’m stupid...” Sera concealed her face in her hands. “I know. You're not like that, never have been. Not even when you were... you know? 'Cause when you looked at me, I felt like you saw me. Really me? When you say I'm pretty, it's not like all that. It's like... in here?" Sera fully met her partner's gaze once more but quickly lowered her eyes, blushing. She hadn't worn a stitch of clothing for at least two hours by now, but she had never felt so naked as in that moment. Raw, sharp, achingly sweet, terrified, it all got hung up in her throat. "All that pretty shite you say? II mean, it's _not_ shite. But I can't..."

"Want to know what I think of that?"

Sera shrugged. "Ain't much to think about, is it."

Lavellan hugged her tightly from behind. "Someone had you and she didn't hang onto you? I can't believe anyone would be that foolish." Now her lips became just-so insistent, pressing softly into the nape of Sera's neck, cautious, but full of need. It made her hair stand on end. "You? Exquisite. Radiant. A treasure."

Something unraveled in Sera, like a silken thread knotting itself and then loosening, flooding her with an inexplicable relief. "There's that again? You keep talking that way, and I--" 

"Take this, for example... and this." Sera shivered as lips brushed over her collarbone, while elegant fingers traced the crest of her hip. "Unparalleled perfection, wouldn't you agree?" Meeting neither resistance nor protests, Lavellan kissed her deeply in the hollow of her throat. Now that Sera was fully aware of the present again, she remembered how badly she wanted those hands all over, inside of her. Felt how close they were together, the wet heat behind her and against her neck, pressing into her back.

"Not fair. You don't know what you're... doing." Sera's breathing came faster.

"I think that I do." Lavellan stopped kissing her for a moment and gave her a deadly serious look. "Or don't you believe me when I say I'm not completely inexperienced?" 

Sera simply gaped at her. "You're joking right? After that show you put on?" She giggled madly, ducking a mock punch aimed at her shoulder. "I mean, where in the world did you learn THAT?" Lavellan's expression was priceless, but Sera hadn't much time to appreciate it before she found herself on her back, with the other woman's teeth on her earlobe, dark hair falling loose and tickling her chest.

"Sera... I'm not going to make you leave. Not ever. And if I can't make love to every inch of you right now, I will lose my mind." Without another word, she moved lower, kneeling before the bed with her arms draped over Sera's legs, allowing her lips to quickly brush the inside of her thigh. The sight of her gazing up worshipfully through her dark, dishevelled hair left Sera speechless.

"A-ahh..." Whatever she was thinking evaporated on her lips, turning into a whimper. She braced her entire body for what was sure to come, going by the look in those eyes-- and blinked twice in bewilderment. Lavellan gathered Sera's wrist in her hands, taking in the feel of her calloused fingertips-- and applied a delicate, chaste kiss. "You... what?" 

_"Every. Inch."_ Her laserlike focus on the tendons and soft hairs of Sera's forearm did not waver.

"Not just the... arse, bits...? Oh." Sera started to protest, but she was starting to like the thought of drawing this out. The idea occurred to her, that she might not have to leave in the morning, either. "You're _touched_ alright, just..." She sighed as Lavellan's mouth began to explore the crook of her elbow, the lean muscle behind her breast. "Just keep talking, please."

**Author's Note:**

> Challenge to attempt writing Sera POV and find a comfortable ground for her voice. Some headcanon ideas for my own Lavellan, but I left her description a bit vague in case someone wanted to envision something else. I had these thoughts about Sera's inner thoughts and feelings of inadequacy around verbal communication that I couldn't get out of my head.


End file.
